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End of Ignorance
The tragic events in Bali have touched all Australians, brought the human face of terrorism into our lives and created a few brief moments of political bi-partisanship.
Interview: The Wet One
NSW Opposition industrial relations spokesman Michael Gallacher stakes out his relationship with the union movement.
Bad Boss: Like A Bastard
Virgin Mobile is sexy and funky, right? Well, only if those terms have become synonyms for dictatorial or downright mean.
Unions: Demolition Derby
Tony Abbott likens industrial relations to warfare and, like a good general should, he is about to shift his point of attack � from building sites to car plants, reports Jim Marr.
Corporate: The Bush Doctrine
For the powerful, consumerism equals freedom, and is all the freedom we need, writes James Goodman
Politics: American Jihad
Let�s get real. The origins of modern Islamic terrorist groups are in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Langley, Virginia not Baghdad, argues Noel Hester.
Health: Secret Country
Oral history recordings are an inadequate tool in trying to find out what happened to Aboriginal stockmen and their communities on cattle stations in Northern Australia, writes Neale Towart
Review: Walking On Water
On the 20th anniversary of the first AIDS-related death, Tara de Boehmler witnesses the aftermath of losing a loved one to the illness in Walking On Water.
Culture: TCF
Novelist Anthony Macris captures life on the shop floor in this extract from his upcoming novel, Capital Volume II
Poetry: The UQ Stonewall
The University of Queensland has sought to join the ranks of union-busting companies like Rio Tinto in trying to sack the president of the local union - and made the mistake of thinking they were dealing with an array of acquiescent academics.
 No Night Shift for Sunset Workers
Workmates Back Kamal�s Right to Pray
Unions Target Corporate AGMs
Nurses Short-Changed On Parking
Abbott Makes Grab for Broken Hill
Unions Get Ready to Wobble
Brogden Flags Assault On Injured Workers
�Build a Life� Gathers Steam
The West Gets with the Best
Child Carers Get $18 Living Wage
Victorian Workers Rally for Kingham
Woolies in Redundancy Fight
Unions Call for Peace
Clown Nearly Shuts Darwin Hospital
Teachers Eye Historic ATSIC Alliance
Support Grows for US Waterfront Workers
Work Stress Kills The Healthy
Unions Back Sinn Fein Mandate
Activists Notebook
The Soapbox
I Walk The Line
American civil rights leader Jesse Jackson has weighed into the Hilton Hotel dispute with this special message to the workforce. Postcard
Mekong Daze
Union Aid Abroad's Phil Hazelton fires off a missive from Laos where he is spending a year working with the community. Month In Review
Bush Whackers
It was a month where the world teetered on the brink of peace, no thanks to the leader of the free world, writes Jim Marr The Locker Room
The Laws Of Gravity
Phil Doyle goes looking for the fine line that separates sport from an exercise in time-wasting Bosswatch
Snouts in the Trough
It�s AGM season in the corporate world, and deal after shady deal is being exposed as highfliers treat company accounts like the proverbial honey-pot. Wobbly
Songs of Solidarity
There has been a proud history of pro-worker tunes dating back to the early days of the 20th century, which will be continued in a new CD, writes Dan Buhagiar.
Talking Frankly
Memo to Junior
Defence Signals
Pandora's Box on Prayer?
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News
Nurses Short-Changed On Parking
Hunter Valley nurses are being forced to pay hundreds of dollars a year to go to work, while doctors in the same system get in for free.
NSW Nurses Association General Secretary, Brett Holmes, has labelled plans by the Hunter Area Health Service to increase parking fees for nurses as �madness�.
Under the proposal staff at public hospitals and aged care facilities in Newcastle and Maitland would be charged daily parking fees, adding hundreds of dollars a year to the cost of going to work for nurses during a critical shortage in the profession.
Nurses at Wallsend Aged Care Facility have voted to take industrial action if work commences to build barriers or gates to car parking areas. Nurses at John Hunter Hospital are also considering industrial action over the issue, which could hundreds of dollars a year to the cost of going to work for Nurses.
But doctors are continuing to get the Rolls Royce treatment, being able to access the health system without being charged for parking, with many VMO's having free parking as part of their contracts.
Hunter Nurse Managers have expressed their opposition to the plan and nurses at other affected facilities will meet over the next few days to discuss their response to the issue.
"Nurses are there 24 hours a day, seven days a week," says Hunter area organiser for the NSWNA, Donna St Clair. "Nurses need safe, secure car parking. Violence against nurses has been increasing."
St Clair dismissed suggestions from some quarters that public transport was the solution, as this was unavailable or inadequate in many parts of the Hunter region.
The NSWNA is asking NSW Health Minister, Craig Knowles to intervene and stop the Hunter Area Health Service increasing staff parking fees at major hospitals and imposing them at a number of aged care facilities and smaller hospitals in the region.
"We already have a serious nurse shortage in NSW and one of the biggest irritations for nurses is having to pay to park at work," says Holmes
"Independent research into the NSW nurse shortage, by the Sydney University's Australian Centre for Industrial Relations Research and Training (ACIRRT), found that parking fees rank close to the top of management practices that most annoy and irritate nurses."
The push comes as retail workers at Warringah Mall fight similar plans to impose daily parking charges there. They've won the backing of retailers and even local MP and federal Workplace Relations Minister Tony Abbott.
Warringah Mall owners AMP are pushing their proposal through the Land and Environment Court, opting to bypass local accountability at the council level.
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Issue 157 contents
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